[XeTeX] XeTeX version 0.6 available

[Ross Moore]

Hi Jonathan,

On 11/05/2004, at 12:49 AM, Jonathan Kew wrote:

>
> On 9 May 2004, at 11:11 pm, Ross Moore wrote:
>
>> BTW, I have a slightly improved driver which
>>
>>   a.  implements the  HSB  color model
>>
>>   b.  ensures only one \special{x:backgroundcolor=...}
>>       can go on a page.
>>
>> Jonathan, did you implement the 'backgroundcolor' yet?
>> It hasn't worked for me.
>
> No, I didn't; but I'll give it some thought. You're expecting it to 
> set the background color of the entire page, right?

Yes, ...

>
> What makes it tricky is that currently, xdv2pdf simply draws the 
> contents of the .xdv file, in the order it encounters them, into a 
> Quartz graphics context; it has no direct control over the PDF 
> generation. So when it sees \special{x:backgroundcolor=...}, it may 
> well be too late to apply a background to the page as a whole.

  ... but the driver implementation places it first on each page.

It does this by patching the \shipout primitive.
\pagecolor{....} simply sets a value, which is read in the \output
routine and the \special is constructed before the page content
is shipped-out.

This means:
   a. only 1 instance of the \special can occur on a page;
   b. the last value on a page will win;
   c.  dvx2pdf sees this \special at the top of the page,
      so the background color is knowable at all times.

> I can think of ways to deal with this, but I'm concerned about having 
> a performance impact on all documents (whether or not they actually 
> use \special{x:backgroundcolor=...}).
>
> I'll try and find time to experiment a bit.........

If there's no Quartz parameter for the background-color,
you could paint a page-sized rectangle. Better would be
to just color a `layer' that is under everything else;
can this be done ?


Do you want me to send you the revised driver,
for generating documents suitable for testing?



Hope this helps,

	Cheers

		Ross

>
> JK
>
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Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia                                  fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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